OF SCOTCH AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS. / 



putes his consumption of nutritive food, and from his omission 

 of the insular districts, such as Skye, &c, for the returns we 

 have obtained from these quarters materially lessen the general 

 average of the whole country. In Skye, the dietary of the lower 

 classes is more deficient, botli in quantity and nutritive value, 

 than in any other district of Scotland. At one time they are at 

 the point of starvation, subsisting on what scant fare nature in 

 that most rugged and barren tract affords, and at another, 

 luxuriating on what windfalls come to them after a storm in the 

 shape of an abundance of shell-fish. One family in this island 

 we found had not seen butcher meat for five years, and there are 

 many who never tasted beer or cheese ! 



For the purpose of comparing the average weekly consumpt of 

 nutritive food by agricultural labourers, and by agricultural 

 computed adults in Scotland, we have prepared the following 

 table : — 



which gives an excess in favour of the labourer, of 



Carbon, 

 Nitrogen, 



10,057 grains. 

 563J „ 



Total, 



10,620| grains per week. 



Comparing this result against the following table, calculated 

 from the statistics given by Professor Lyon Playfair of other 

 working classes of the United Kingdom with reference to carbon 

 only, we find that 



An English sailor consumes weekly 33,839f grains carbon. 



„ navvy, . 35,218| „ 



Hard-worked weaver, . 42,007 ,, 



Fully fed tailor, . . 35,983fr „ 



Blacksmith, . . 47,743]? „ 



giving an average of 38,972| grains carbon weekly. 



The quantity of carbon, however, according to Professor Lyon 

 Playfair, necessary to maintain in good health and muscular 

 activity a "hard-worked" British labourer, is 43,793f grains per 

 week ; and we, therefore, find that the dietary of the average 



